Commonly confused with Cinco de Mayo in the U.S., this holiday celebrates the moment when Father Hildago, a Catholic priest, called for Mexico's Independence from Spain in September 1810. After a moving speech in the Mexican town of Dolores, Hildago took up the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a Roman Catholic image of the Virgin Mary as she appears to Juan Diego, an indigenous  Mexican believer who was later sainted by the church. As Hildago took up the banner of Guadalupe, the parton saint of Mexico, many people were inspired to follow him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Albarran says they amassed a large, unruly, hodgepodge army that included women, children, grandparents, and livestock. Untrained and difficult to control, it was eventually defeated, with many of its members going back home to harvest their fields. Hildago was defrocked as a priest by the Spanish Inquisition, says William Beezley, professor of history at the University of Arizona. He was later beheaded by the civil government as punishment for revolting, and his head was displayed in Guanajuato, where he and his army were charged with causing a massacre.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Another priest, Jose Maria Morelos, took up the mantle of revolution, sending home anyone from the first army without a weapon and horse. Morelos was also eventually taken before the Inquisition and beheaded--and the struggle for independence sunk into a period of chaos as Mexico continued to fight a weakening Spanish rule. Then, in 1821, Agustin de Iturbide, a Spanish-supporting soldier who flipped to become a leader in the Mexican Independence movement, led troops into Mexico City, decisively seizing control of the city and declaring the country's independence. His following political promise, called the Plan of Three Guarantees, sought to free Mexico from Spanish control, solidify the country as Roman Catholic, and ensure that all citizens were equal.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       iturbide became emperor of the new nation, setting up a monarchy-style system and spending much of the new country's budget on lavish clothes that resembled Austrian royal court fashions at the time. Ultimately, this system failed as well. Military leaders jostled and vied for power, and, finally, a democratic republic was set up, led by an independence-era fighter--Guadalupe Victoria--who became Mexico's first president. "Mexicans don't celebrate or acknowledge Iturbide as the father of independence," Albarran says. "The hero that's selected as the father of independence uniformly is Father Hildago, the charismatic but disastrous priest who gets the ball rolling."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       As per tradition on Mexico's independence day, however, the president honors the legacy of Father Hildago by performing a reenactment of sorts from the National Palace in Mexico City. Beezley says on the night of September 15 at 11 p.m., according to Mexican tradition and folklore, Hildago went into the parish church in the town of Delores, rang the church bell, and told the villagers who came running that they needed to revolt. As a result, September 15, the president of Mexico will step out on the balcony, ring that same bell, and give a speech that is "supposedly Hildago's words," he says. "Nobody wrote down what Hildago said. He was beheaded, so who knows what happened to the real version of it?"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 But Mexicans accross the country, and in the U.S., and wherever they are, can watch it on TV, and that's what's celebrated." Despite the uncertainty around Hildago's exact words, the speech today celebrates his passion for Mexico and its people--and honors the moment when he pushed the country toward its eventual independence.